


Wy-Naught and the Pear-You-Eat

by Dinmenel (Vesperidian)



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 04:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10563798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperidian/pseuds/Dinmenel
Summary: In which we meet the namesakes, and the Law is broken.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Someone requested that I post this on AO3, so here it is! I've been meaning to migrate my old fics here anyway. AO3 seems to be quite bad for images, but I guess it's better than nothing.

 

 

 

Deep in the Valenwood's cloud-shrouded bowels lived a girl by the call of why. Wy is what the forest called her, for the full Wylandriah was too cumbersome even for her Nana Nibblet, and why is what she called to the forest. Like the peek-a-boo mice of the moss-buried marbles you may sometimes find there, Wy was a forever-introductory creature. No one in the forest ever mistook her meandering rustle for anyone else's, for she announced herself wherever she went with her wondering song. It went something like this:

 

 

 

> _Why are there eyes, Mr. Is and Mrs. Must_
> 
> _if there are also lies, Syostree Zero, Syostree Zed?_
> 
> _Why are there starts, Mrs. Is and Mr. Must_
> 
> _if springs run hearts, Syostree Zed, Syostree Zero?_
> 
> _And why are there rules, Messrs. Won't, Madame Can't_
> 
> _if an empty girl sighs, Sisters Zetha, Sisters Zella?_
> 
> _Does that seem right to who?_
> 
> _Well, does it punk?_

 

and so on and so forth like that.

 

Of course, that sort of behaviour would have had most of the forest taken up by the Law on a charge of Profaning the Wild with Rhetoric, but for Wy it mostly just scared away other young animals who might have been Friendly. Perhaps the other fauna didn't think it worth reporting, or perhaps the Law just couldn't decide whether or not where she had gone could be classified as Foreign.

 

 

Wy was singing this song in between juicy bites of tangerine, nestled in a mossy hemlock-root sofa by a giggling stream, when she turned eight and a monkey-boy wearing an imitation Colovian cravat and carrying a grumpy cat dropped down next to her out of the tree.

 

"You shouldn't be doing that," he said, and sprawled backward into the moss.

 

Wy threw a tangerine peel into the silly little stream. "Why is that, Samantha John? I like to sing songs. And not-songs."

 

" _And_ you shouldn't be doing that," said Samantha John, which was, naturally, the monkey-boy's name. And of course he was not really a monkey but a nine-year old Imga. An Imga is a sort of intelligent ape, much like Man.  "It wakes the owls." He petted the cat's head forcefully. The cat scowled out at the world.

 

The girl blinked at Samantha John through a puckerbrush of black curls. Then she said, "Have you seen any more ragamuffins nearby?" and began peeling another fruit.

 

"I don't know what that is," replied the boy smartly, "but it probably doesn't exist. And I meant _that._ You shouldn't be doing _that._ " He pointed at the tangerine as she popped three pale orange sectors in her mouth and squelched them, squirting the juice out between her sharp little teeth.

 

"A ragamuffin," Wy began while still chewing, "is a sort of feline fairy or daedra. They don't have fur of their own, so they ambush Beasts and Animals and steal their coats with static voodoo."

 

"You're boiche," the boy continued. "You know boiche aren't supposed to eat fruit. It's against your Niche. You're in a raptorial tribe, you should eat, you know, cats and foxes and things." The cat in his lap hissed disapprovingly, narrowing its eyes at Wy. "Or honey," Samantha John went on, "I know you like honey."

 

 

  
Wy tossed another peel in the stream. "Of course, they aren't very popular. They make baby sounds up in the tops of trees and then drop on the worried parents and run off with their fur, which is quite sneaky. They only stop pretending to be other things after a big storm."

 

Samantha John squinted at her. "You know, the Law is going to come for you if you keep doing that. Do you want the face-snakes to find us? And what's special about big storms?"

 

"Silly Samantha John," Wy giggled. "It's because ragamuffins eat the lightnings, of course. And that makes everyone grateful. Until they start poaching furs again, anyway."

 

Samantha John stared at the serene little elf dubiously. Then he said, "That's not true. You made it up. I would have heard the Smokers talking about them if they were real."

 

Wy blinked at him. "So you haven't seen any more." Samantha John shook his head. "So why are you here, if you didn't bring me a ragamuffin of my own?"

 

"Because you sing so _loud._ And because I made Friends with this cat." He shoved the grumpy ball of ragged grey fur at the girl for petting, but the cat yowled loudly and twisted out of his oversized hands. It scrambled up his chest and hunched on his shoulders, glaring out at Wy.

 

"You stupid Tiny Creature," he said, baring his teeth at the cat. "I'm not going to let her eat you!" The cat hissed at him and batted his ear with a swift paw, and the two set to squabbling.

 

 

Meanwhile, a deep buzzing filled Wy's ears, like the sound of Dunmer busybodies whispering around corners, and an enormous black bee flew up the stream bed and honed in on the little girl. Furry as a young kitten and about the same size, the bee flew three circles around Wy's head as she popped another segment of fruit in her mouth, buzzed down to inspect the pile of unpeeled tangerines still in her lap, hovered near the tip of her nose for a few seconds as though memorizing her face, and then flew off downstream the way it had come. Wy waved goodbye amiably.

 

 

"Stop being so paranoid! She doesn't even care about her Niche. Look, she's still eating that fruit." The cat ignored the Imga boy, still baring its sharp teeth. "Fine! I give up!" He threw up his hands, then cocked his head suddenly. His enormous ears quivered. "What's that sound?" he asked.

 

The busybody buzzing had returned, but a hundred times louder. It was a palpable thing, humming in their bones and tickling their teeth. With it came a rhythmic thudding from downstream in the forest, beating a steady tattoo that shook droplets of water from the needles of the hemlock above them... and grew swiftly louder.

 

Wy laughed bubblingly as she stood up and shook out her tattered purple robes, sending the rest of her tangerines bobbing downstream.

 

                                                "It's the sound of drums," she said.

                                                      "It looks like we're ready

                                                                to begin."

 

* * *

 

 

The first trumpet blast contained many notes, and brought with it a thick fog of giant black bees, which swarmed around the two young animals and crawled ticklingly all over their bodies. The second blast contained only a few notes but ripped the needles from the branches overhanging the stream in its grumpy bluster. The third blast had only one note, and carried these words:

 

"STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!"

 

Samantha John turned his bee-burdened head slowly to look at Wy. His ears quivered wildly with fright.

 

"Th-these are bramra bees," he said. Wy nodded happily.

The Imga boy closed his eyes with a little wimper. "I told you this would happen," he said, and then the massive head of a fully grown face-snake butted rudely into the scene.

 

A face-snake, if you don't know, is a sort of hereditary Lawyer of the forest, although they prefer to be known as oliphaunts. They keep the Statutes of the Stomach as laid down by the Living Law. This one had short ivory tusks carved like ornamented scroll cases and a large, aristocratic ruff made of honeycomb encircling its enormous grey face. It kept up a constant humming under its breath, and shifted its big flat feet to a steady beat.

 

"Remain motionless or you will be stung into submission!" it trumpeted.

 

"This is your fault," Samantha John said miserably. "I'm in trouble with the Law, and it's _your fault._ "

 

"SILENCE," the face-snake blared in his face. "The trial is starting." The tip of its trunk snaked around and pulled out a stretch of hemp parchment from one of its tusks. Several bees flew over and began dancing across it.

 

"Proceedings of Case #312546. Accused: Wylandriah. Life cycle: Juvenile. Niche: Raptorial. Species: Bosmer. Crime: Niche Transgression, 3rd degree. Evidence: Paw-printed rind. Sentence: A good paddling." The prehensile trunk tore off the parchment and shoved it into Wy's tiny hand. It was covered in pictograms made of blood red wax, and summarized her trial. "This is your copy. Does the Accused have any Testimony prior to its transition to Sentenced status?"

 

 

"Yes," answered Wy sweetly. "I'm not."

 

The face-snake's wet black eyes blinked at her. "Not what?"

 

"Bosmer."

 

Samantha John gave her a Look. The oliphaunt gave her a Look. The cat gave her a Look. The bees gave her a Look.

 

"If you are not a Bosmer," said the oliphaunt dubiously, "then what are you?"

 

Wy shrugged. "I'm not sure."

 

"You speak amidst the bramra, so this must be Truth," the face-snake mused. "I am not trained in the regulations for this. This is a case for the Living Law itself."

 

And so the two young animals and their cat were hoisted onto the Lawyer's broad grey back by its trunk, and the black fog of bees hummed away into the forest,

 

                                                destined for the marble Ring of Rhythm,

                                                            where face-snakes tend

                                                               the Living Law.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Floating through the clouded forest in a buzz of bees, the face-snake's humming song thrumming through them, Samantha John fretted and Wy wondered.

 

"We're going to be banished," the boy moaned, pulling at his ears. " _Banished,_ Wy!"

 

"Oh, calm down," scoffed the little elf, lying on her belly on the oliphaunt's back. Samantha John's cat was perched on her back, making rumbly sounds in its chest.

 

"Do you know where we're going???" squeaked the Imga. "The same place _carnivorous plants_ and _lumberjills_ go! The _Court_ of _Law._ "

 

Wy tossed him a tart look. "Didn't you ever wonder why the face-snakes get to be the Law? Why not leopards, or lemurs? Or even leotards?"

 

"It's just the way it is," Samantha John exclaimed, and collapsed into a dejected slouch. "Asking why can't help us now."

 

"I overheard some disgruntled mail-boars saying it's because they're the only ones who know how to sing the bramra," Wy went on. "You know, with their little flute holes." She wiggled her fingers in front of her nose.

 

 

Samantha John groaned. Wy frowned. "They aren't really normal bees, you know. They don't have wings. See, they fly with these little hairs."

 

It was true. Instead of wings, the bees had tiny whirring propellers sticking out of their backs.

 

"I caught a few the other day to see how they work," Wy continued. Samantha John just sighed. "It was quite dangerous you know," the girl said, frowning harder at him. "These are blood bees. They make blood honey. From blood. And flowers."

 

"That's nice," he said.

 

"I could have died you know," Wy said sourly, getting more irritated. "I've heard that even face-snakes can be killed by their own bramra if they stop singing to them even for a little bit. They burrow into the brain and use the body as a walking hive." No response. Wy fell grumpily silent.

 

But they did not have long to pout. Only a few minutes later, the fog-clung trees parted, and the huge white marble walls of the face-snake city, splotched with vibrant green moss and bordered by a broad patch of packed bare earth, rose up in the mist.

 

"The Rhythm Ring," Samantha John moaned. "The Court of Law."

 

The face-snake city was located in a sudden depression in the forest, almost like a crater. From where they stood on the rim, they could see past the high walls and into the city itself, which was a tangled maze of collapsed arches, vine-clutched walls, and mossy marble statues. If there had ever been roads, they were long since covered in a thick blanket of fallen needles, the better for the soft feet of the many face-snakes that lumbered through its wild ways. And on every exposed surface there were the massive red-gold hives, and the monstrous black bees zooming hither and thither.

 

 

Wy smacked her lips together. "Do you think they could possibly eat _all_ of that honey? Surely not."

 

The oliphaunt began to descend toward the city, and Samantha John slowly turned to look at Wy. His eyes were narrow and suspicious.

 

"You did it on purpose," he said slowly, understanding dawning. "You got us into this on purpose. This is a honey hunt!" Wy's face turned bright orange. "You could have just snuck in!" he shouted as the face-snake gathered speed, rocking them back and forth.

 

"You try getting through that on your own!" Wy yelled back, pointing at the city walls.

 

"They're just walls! Climb them!"

 

"Not _those_ walls!" Wy replied. "The _Rhythm Ring!_ "

 

"What are you -" began Samantha John, but as the oliphaunt stepped into the stretch of bare beaten down earth encircling the city, it became immediately clear what Wy meant.

 

It was very much like being thrown into a stampede, or into a deaf percussion section. The air pounded beat without sound down around them, felt in the bones and teeth and skin more than ears, as though giant invisible clappers were banging down on all sides, only just missing them as the face-snake stepped just in time. They grew closer and closer, stronger and stronger, shaking the skulls of the young animals more and more until...

 

... it stopped, quite suddenly, and they were underneath the city's mossy archway. The face-snake continued on as though nothing had happened. Behind them, the bare-packed stretch of orange earth betrayed itself only with a rhythmically pulsing shimmer in the air above.

 

" _See?"_ said Wy. "They come here every time the moons are gone and stomp up a rock solid beat en masse! You try getting through that without a face-snake to step in time for you!"

Samantha John just shook his head to clear it of the thundering beat.

 

They were taken through the ruined city, under stalactites of honeycomb and past scattered boulder fields where legions of tawny peek-a-boo mice frolicked with infant oliphaunts. Face-snakes of all ages and sizes and genders bustled about with their fancy-schmancy ruffs and reams of scrolls, humming the lines of law into beeswax being.

 

 

At last they arrived at a long hall printed from columns of blood red wax and curtains of beaded jade. Liveried lemurs strutted about the needle-bed floor, sneering down their furry noses.

 

Their face-snake approached the far end of the hall reverently. An enormous marble dais was there, decorated with small wax sculptures of majestic oliphaunts. Many layers of beaded curtains hid the dais' occupant.

 

 

"Perspicacity," their face-snake said respectfully as it fell to its front knees, "I beg your assistance with a most unusual case."

 

From behind the curtains came a tired trumpet, harmonizing with the ever-present buzz. "What is the situation?"

 

"This girl, Perspicacity. She does not know her Niche, and so cannot consume."

 

After a long pause, the tired voice spoke again. "An empty child has passed beyond the Ring of Rhythm and into the circle of our watchful supremacy over wrong wilderness and wyrm. This is done. With her comes a normal boy, complete and content in himself." Wy shot a look at Samantha John. He certainly didn't look content to her. More like ready to cry with fright. "He will have need of allies, if he is to survive her. Therefore let them approach and look upon me. I will secure for him guidance from within. Let it be done."

"B-but Perspicacity," their face-snake stuttered, "what of their sight?"

 

A snorting trumpet stirred the curtains. "They are calves," the voice answered. "They will not be harmed. Let them approach the Living Law."

 

And so the face-snake lifted the two young animals from its back and the lemurs parted the tinkling curtains, and then, with the cat across her shoulders and Samantha John at her side, Wy stepped up onto the dais. The curtains clicked shut behind them.

 

Within reclined a celestial oliphaunt. Larger than a small house, his wrinkled black hide was spangled with glowing stars and shifting runes and the connections of constellations. Upon his domed brow burned the insignia of the sun, blacker than black, and bramra crawled and buzzed about his red-gold honeycomb crown. He was massive, majestic, and very, very old. Under his pearly white eyes, Wy felt just a teensy bit frightened for the first time that day.

 

  
She gulped before she spoke. "What are you going to do to us?"

 

"To your friend I shall do nothing," the Living Law replied. "He shall return home without repercussion from this day." Samantha John's mouth fell open. "But you, empty child," he continued, "you I know for what you really are. And what you are carries a heavy punishment of itself."

 

Wy scowled at him fiercely, but her hands tightened around her elbows with fear. "So say what you're going to do," she snapped.

 

The ancient oliphaunt pointed at her with its trunk. "I am going to make you what you are not," he said. "That which simply is."

 

The empty girl chewed her lip angrily for a few moments. Then she grinned with her sharp little teeth.

 

"Sorry punk," she said. "Got your conk!" And in a flash she had shoved two wax statuettes arm deep up the Living Law's trunk, and the song that had not ceased for over two thousand years fell silent.

Immediately, the buzz of the Living Law's hive became angry and harsh, and the bees began honing in on the oliphaunt's giant head.

 

"Time to go Samantha John!" Wy yelled as the ancient animal tossed its head, trying desperately to snort out a song past the softening wax in its snout. Behind them, the other face-snake trumpeted loudly. Wy grabbed Samantha John's hand and pulled him off the dais, and the two dashed out through the curtains, pursued by an angry oliphaunt Lawyer.

 

 

"What in the Jungle did you just do???" Samantha John yelled as they ran through the ruined city. "Are you insane? That was the _Law_ you just conked!"

 

"Yep!" shouted Wy. "And it was _fantastic."_

 

Glancing over their shoulders, they saw that the first face-snake had been joined in the chase by four or five others who were all trumpeting madly, blowing blocks of marble into the air with the blasts and banging their scroll tusks against the ground.

 

“Hurry up!" Wy yelled, and pulled the Imga out into a field of mossy boulders tickled with scurrying golden mice squeaking confused “Peek-a-boo?”s at the dashing animals. The face-snakes pulled up short at the edge of the field, not wanting to trample the mice they all loved. Wy cackled triumphantly, but the ruse was not good enough. The face-snakes could not follow, but their bees definitely could. An angry black fog of bees zoomed quickly after them, buzzing at their butts.

 

"Wyyyyyyyy!" Samantha John moaned wildly. "Wy, the bramra are going to get us!"

 

But Wy giggled madly, yelling, "Nope nope nope!" as she whirled around, yanked the wild-eyed cat from her shoulders, and threw it straight into the oncoming swarm.

 

The cat yowled as it sailed into the angry bees. Samantha John gasped. The swarm boiled in place around the fallen cat - and then, quite suddenly, collapsed into a pathetic pile of bugs.

 

 

"W-what?" choked the boy.

 

Wy giggled. "We came prepared, Samantha John."

 

From out of the pile of wriggling bramra came the cat, strutting confidently toward them and looking quite pleased with itself. But instead of being grey and raggedy, it was quite wrinkled and naked, save for a few black bristles clinging to the end of its tail.

 

"It's a ragamuffin," said Samantha John numbly. And, matter-of-factly, the ragamuffin nodded its ugly head,

 

                                                and jumped up to wrap its nudity

                                                            in the puckerbrush

                                                               of Wy's hair.

 

 

 

"You are a very Naughty Animal."

 

Samantha John stood over Wy as she took another large bite of red-gold honeycomb. Her face was smeared with scarlet honey, and the ragamuffin purred happily atop her head.

 

"Did you hear me?" Samantha John said. "I said -"

 

"I am very Naught-y," finished Wy, spitting out the chewed-up wax. "You are quite right. Wy Naught. Have some of this comb, wot wot, why not? It tastes like the whole forest at once."

 

Samantha John stomped a foot. "You aren't even sorry!"

 

Wy went on, philosophically. "I think that must be what bees _do,_ you know? Condense all the best parts of a place down into one delicious thing you can put in your mouth." She took another big bite, and chewed thoughtfully. The Imga threw up his hands and left the little elf to her feast.

 

 

As he wandered away into the tumbledown old city, he heard the sound of bramra bees growling nearby. At first he wanted to run back to the safety of the ragamuffin, thinking the oliphaunts had found them again, but something about the sound seemed different. So he went on, and, past a few slabs of marble, found the source of the sound.

 

It was an enormous black river of bees, flowing steadily in an enormous circle around what seemed to be a high-walled garden in the city's center. Strangely, although bees came and left the river constantly, they didn't seem to really _do_ anything while they were there, aside from fly and buzz.

 

Samantha John should probably have just left it alone. He knew it. But one does not become friends with an elf like Wylandriah without acquiring some of her characteristics, at least when she herself wasn't around for him to react against. So Samantha John did not leave it alone, but instead ran to fetch his sticky-fingered friend.

"Well, they're clearly there to stop things getting in or out," said Wy matter-of-factly when she saw the river. "So therefore it's probably a prison, and we should go see who's inside." She set off, the ragamuffin's tail lashing out of the back of her head.

 

"What??" Samantha John exclaimed. "We can't go in a prison just like that!"

 

"Of course we can," the elf answered, tugging him along. "We have a ragamuffin."

 

So they did. The pair strode, half confidently, half reluctantly, out across the black river, and the ragamuffin's field of static voodoo spread to surround them, and all the bees that entered were shorn of their propeller hairs and fell to the ground harmlessly.

 

Inside the tall marble walls was a wild garden. There were many strange flowers and bushes and trees they had not seen before, some of which seemed to have teeth, and others of which were conducting a rather vigorous political debate about somebody named Arden Sul and his chances in the next Greymarch. There were odd-ish mushrooms with leaves bustling about, and the grape vines on the walls were making the music of an expert bell choir with their silver fruit.

 

The two young animals stepped forward onto a mound of moss just in front of the entrance. "This... doesn't look much like a prison," commented Samantha John. Suddenly the moss mound stood up, and they found themselves on the back of a photosynthetic tiger. It looked at them with cow eyes and said,

 

"Well, hello. Who are you then?"

 

Wy looked at Samantha John. Samantha John looked at Wy. Then she said, "Um, I'm... Wy?"

"Excellent," answered the tiger. "I'm the Mangy Vegan. Would you like some soybeans?" It held out a pawful of pods.

 

 

Wy blinked. "No thank you," she said politely.

 

The Vegan nodded. "You'll be here for the Pear-you-eat, then. All right, I'll take you." And without another word, the mossy tiger carried them away on its back.

 

"Here you are," it said when they had reached the center of the garden. "This is the Pear-you-eat." The two animals clambered down from his back.

 

Before them was an enormous dead tree with tangled roots and bark like Wy's hair. It was split down the middle as though by lightning, but in its remaining branches there was a tangled vine, and a single purple pear hung low from a branch, dripping violently blue juice down the trunk and onto the roots.

 

 

Samantha John peered into a gap between two roots. "... there's nothing down there," he said. "That juice just drips down into nothing." Wy looked too. He was quite right; there was nothing but void and a steady stream of electric blue juice between the roots.

 

"So, um," said Wy, looking at the Mangy Vegan sitting calmly beside them. "What's all this then?"

 

The Vegan blinked at her. "It's the Pear-you-eat," he said, and padded off into the garden.

 

Wy looked at Samantha John. Samantha John looked at Wy. Then Wy shrugged, and started clambering up the tree's roots.

 

"What?!" exclaimed the Imga boy behind her, trying to hold her back by the hem of her tattered purple robes. "You can't actually do it!"

 

"Why not?!" yelled Wy, and shoved him to the ground. "I can do what I want. Don't try to stop me just because you're afraid to do anything anyone thinks is wrong." And she turned her back on him, climbed up the roots of the tree, and took a big juicy bite out of the pear.

 

 

"See?" she said, turning back to him with juice running down her sticky chin and tiny throat. "Nothing. Perfectly safe. Perfectly tasty. I might have another."

 

"You're mean," said Samantha John sulkily. Wy rolled her eyes and settled back into the tree's creases.

 

"What do you think this tree's name is?" she said after a while, running her fingers across the dried bark.

 

"You're not Bosmer, trees don't even have names for you," said Samantha John with his arms folded.

 

"Of course they do. You just never ask them." She peered closely into the grain, then pressed her pointed ear against the wood. "I think it's called Knot," she said. "Because it's so knotty, just like me."

 

"An excellent choice," said a silky new voice suddenly. "You are very observant for such a young animal." And as Wy scrambled backward, falling onto the ground, the pear began to turn, and she saw that it was in fact the head of a very large Wyrm knotted around the tree's dead branches, and that she had taken a bite out of its jaw.

 

"You - you - " she stammered, and then clutched at Samantha John.

 

"I am Mr. Pear-you-eat," the Wyrm replied. They stared at each other silently for a few minutes, the animals completely speechless. Then the Wyrm said, "You have a bee on your knee, Miss Wy."

 

Wy looked. It was true. One of the wingless bees had clung to her robes as they crossed the river and was wriggling helplessly there.

 

"It's quite scared, you know," the Wyrm went on. "Bramra cannot live long without their fur. She's going to die because of you."

 

Wy cringed. "Oh, dear. The poor thing. Here." She took the enormous bee carefully in her hands and brought it to her blue-stained mouth for a fat kiss.

 

 

"There," she said as she laid the juice-touched bee on Knot's woad-stained roots. "It's not much, but that's all anyone can do for you now."

She looked up at the Wyrm. "Is there - is there anything we can do for you, Mr. Pear-you-eat?"

 

The Wyrm grinned widely. "'Tis done," he said.

 

Suddenly they heard a distant trumpeting. "The face-snakes!" exclaimed Samantha John. "Are they coming for us?"

 

"Oh no," said the Wyrm silkily. "No no no. You see, the face-snakes tied me up here long, long ago when they conquered the original rulers of this city. They thought it better to imprison a portion of my power than to simply banish me. But now your wonderful friend here has broken their Living Law," he said. "Well, they know they can't keep me locked up long without him, so they think they'd better send me off for good. They're cutting Knot's connection to the void-anchor below now." He nodded to the gap in the roots, where nothingness stretched. "It's the only thing that keeps this garden in place."

 

 

Samantha John stared up at the Wyrm. "What are you?" he breathed.

 

The Wyrm hissed happily. "I'm the Pear-you-eat," he said, "and I change the Who of You."

 

The trumpeting came again, and the garden shook about them. "Not long now," said the Wyrm. "But do not fear, children. Knot may only have one system still functioning, but that is enough to save his saviors."

 

"What about you?" asked Wy.

 

"Me?" said the Wyrm. "Why Wy, I shall be banished. But do not worry. I am quite used to it. Mortals can't seem to get enough of the process."

 

The garden shook again, harder this time.

 

"Hold tight now, little animals," the Wyrm said. "It's time to fly." And the world smeared before their eyes.

 

When they awoke they were at the rim of the bowl containing the face-snake city, and the oliphaunts inside were still raising an enormous ruckus.

 

"Come _on,_ " said Samantha John, scrambling to his feet. "You have to get out of here. The Law is going to be after you like none other." He pulled Wy up, and the two vanished into the safety of the misty forest. But as they ran,

 

                                                the venom of an eternal wyrm

                                                       worked in Wy's

                                                          tiny mouth.

 

   

 


End file.
